I caught myself flying in a dream and became lucid. The environment was an awesome maze in all directions. I landed in front of a huge mirror and saw that my reflection was overweight. This made me pay attention to my sense of self in the lucid dream and suddenly I turned into two spinning columns of water at war with each other. I wasn't just the water, I was, it seemed, the product of water in interaction.

Then, I began to meditate. I attempted to get rid of all concepts in my mind. The duple body of water felt threatened and merged into one. Now I was a single tornado, spinning slower, and a sense of peace began to pervade me. I was happy to gradually lose my identity, happy to embrace nothingness, happy to become nothing. To just let go...

The water spun slower and slower until I no longer paid attention to it. Cognitively, I was no longer water (or the interaction of it). I was happily getting lost, and then it hit me. It was brief but unmistakable. There was nothing but pure awareness. No thoughts, no coherent memory. Then, back to normal: I was someone again and the memory of that near-nothingness enabled me to blissfully appreciate it. I had been in a state of mind where one has literally nothing to worry about.

Then I woke up with a buzz.

"Empty cognizance of one taste, suffused with knowing, is your unmistaken nature, the uncontrived original state. when not altering what is, allow it to be as it is, and the awakened state is right now spontaneously present."

No doubt. I must try to recreate it. Or attempt something like it again. Maybe lucid dreaming provides the shortcut to meditational ecstasy. B-)

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"Empty cognizance of one taste, suffused with knowing, is your unmistaken nature, the uncontrived original state. when not altering what is, allow it to be as it is, and the awakened state is right now spontaneously present."

I have many dream journal accounts of me waking up from dreams that are abstract, but can only be described as mentally wrestling between to points of view. There's usually a red side and a blue side to looking at the problem. (I've noticed that coincidentally those are the two extremes of visible light that I sense too... makes me wonder about that....) It was a non-lucid dream without form and just colors and emotions.

I had a non-lucid dream a few months ago, and a voice told me, (paraphrase), "When one is alone for too long, their identity separates into two parts. One good, and one bad". It was after watching Starwars the day before, so I saw a vision of me in a strange bed with Darth Vader in black and Princess Leia in white hovering around. I understood it, and knew the meaning, and what it was implying when I was dreaming. The good and the bad is my own sense of self. Being alone with my own thoughts made me realize it, and made it more obvious. Part of me has a strong sense of self esteem, and the other is constantly putting me down.

One side sees the glass half full and the other half empty. Those are always going to be two apposing sides at odds with each other until one simply sees a glass with some water in it and nothing more....

I've been dabbling in trying to let go of everything in a lucid dream and just stop doing anything and be at peace. Why do we do anything at all? To fulfill a desire or craving? Why not just cut out the middle man and go straight there!

I think your dream was a visual representation of the same feelings I have. There's always two ways to look at things, left brain/right brain, love it/hate it, red/blue, hot/cold...... the list goes on, and they are always at odds and never at 'room temperature'. (another poetic, "Uber Geek Emoticon" worthy comment). I guess my self esteem is good today. *Pats self on back*

Soul merging? I usually do body merging so that will be new to me. I remember LaBerge talking about integration by merging with dream characters once.

Hagart, you seem to be referring to altruism and egoism at loggerheads... Hmmm... makes me think aboutSabina Spielrein's inner instinct for self-destruction and the opposing survivalist in all of us. An imbalance can mean going completely either way..

Star Wars references that Light and dark. Good and evil. Both part of the force. Darth Vader was cool. lol!

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"Empty cognizance of one taste, suffused with knowing, is your unmistaken nature, the uncontrived original state. when not altering what is, allow it to be as it is, and the awakened state is right now spontaneously present."

Summerlander wrote:No doubt. I must try to recreate it. Or attempt something like it again. Maybe lucid dreaming provides the shortcut to meditational ecstasy. B-)

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I don't think meditation and ecstasy could go hand in hand lol Kidder! People speak of a place of only love in deep meditation. Love and compassion are wonderful things to meditate on, but the deepest form of meditation actually takes you to a place of complete nothingness. Since love is an emotion, it is not present in nothingness. And yet being in the nothingness, the empty space, source, whatever one would call it, though absent of feeling, leaves people feeling blissful and peaceful on return. How wonderful to just 'be.' I would love to feel the empty vessel of my body. It's a paradox that it was the rich creative imagination that created your lucid dream, that enabled you also to leave the imagination behind and just "to embrace nothingness, happy to become nothing. To just let go..." Ahhhhh.... I'm sure if you intend to enter that space again, you will, just perhaps in a different form. Your mind has learned the state now. Thanks for sharing.

Don't mention it. I'm happy to share it to let others know that such states are possible. Indeed, it is bizarre that the lucid dream, with it's propensity to create colourful forms with the subconscious brush of imagination, culminated in such profundity.

I have always said that we don't really control anything in lucid dreams, rather, we are given the illusion of control as we are moved by urges we can't help but have, and thoughts that arise willy-nilly. Now the impact of this experience is making me pursue it again. I know it will probably be something like it (but not the same) next time around.

In fact, even if the same dream stage leading to the same near-nothingness presents itself in the future, it can never be felt the same as long as I remember this one. Why? Because it would be familiar as long as I have the memory of this one, or, in the least, I now possess a criterion for the numinously blissful. So, a repetition of "Two Columns of Water" leading to emptiness wouldn't just be a repetition. It would be a deja vu. What a combination...

Now here's a bit of an enigma: Is there a difference between stumbling upon such states and getting there by seeking them out? Does one way provide more impact than the other?

"Empty cognizance of one taste, suffused with knowing, is your unmistaken nature, the uncontrived original state. when not altering what is, allow it to be as it is, and the awakened state is right now spontaneously present."

My bit of enigmatic response would be: Do we really 'stumble' across anything? We may not have the conscious intention to seek something out, but perhaps we have an unconscious intention to do so. ? Hmmm. Perhaps even to make sense of some enigma we may have stumbled across in waking life that didn't quite make sense to us? It is indeed an enigma that the perceived chaos of the dreamworld may bring around sensibilities of the perceived order of waking world that never quite made sense to us... mwa haha

But. Just to play Devil's advocate with myself (which is always so much fun) Yes. Intention to seek will find what we seek in the way in which we wish to see it (for good or for bad). Where as to be free of preconceived ideas and emotions, we can perhaps explore more freely (in dream and out) and perhaps stumble across ideas and experiences free from any dogma.

Yes. Good answer. We may seek the numinous deep down. Or at least the unusual, exquisite, fantastical...

Like Michaelangelo's painting of Adam and God. Was it Michaelangelo? You know the one. (Where God, his minions, and his realm form the shape of a human brain.)

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"Empty cognizance of one taste, suffused with knowing, is your unmistaken nature, the uncontrived original state. when not altering what is, allow it to be as it is, and the awakened state is right now spontaneously present."